A partial exchange for a partial return. In return for what? What was there left to want, when the thing he wanted was impossible? An idea flickered to life in his mind. In front of him, Acceptance’s tail began to wag again.
Things could never be as they were again. He knew that now. A part of him, perhaps, had always known. But neither could Theo. Or Mum. Or Grandpa Fitz, or Mellie or Aggie or Reggie. All they could do was keep pushing forward. Together, if they could.
“A heart is a stubborn thing,” said Acceptance. “A weed, really. Give it an inch and it will grow, even just a seed of one.”
Theo would never again be who he had been before the war. Charlie understood that. But maybe, maybe Charlie could still help him become someone new.
“My heart,” Charlie whispered. “I could give you part of my heart.”
They would get what they wanted anyway, the war wolves. There had never been a way to win, he realized, not against this. There were just different kinds of pain, different kinds of damage his heart could take. If Theo left again, if anyone left Charlie alone again, he didn’t think his heart could take it. It would break, or it would harden into stone, and not a war wolf alive would want it. His heart would be safe.
But that wasn’t what Charlie wanted. Not anymore.
“A piece for a piece,” agreed Acceptance. “I shall take . . . half, shall we say? A decent mouthful. But of that mouthful, I will leave you just a bite. Just enough to plant. I cannot promise that the earth of your brother’s chest will accept the seed of your heart, but neither can I promise it will not. If you give Theodore Merriweather a piece of your heart, he may yet accept it. A new one may grow in its place. Perhaps, anyway.”
Charlie thought of what Acceptance had said. That there was only one direction, and that direction was forward. He thought of all the things he would never get back again, no matter what he did, no matter if Theo grew a new heart or not. And he thought of tall, strong Theo crying himself to sleep when he believed no one could hear.
I’ll always find you, don’t you know that? No matter how long it takes.
“I accept your bargain.”
It hurt.
It hurt so much more than he had thought it would.
It hurt like every bruise and broken bone Charlie had ever had squeezed into one. It hurt the way Theo’s hands around Mum’s arm had hurt, the way Mum’s tears had hurt, the way Dad never coming home had hurt. It was all those hurts at once, encompassing and overwhelming them.
It was every kind of hurt a body and a heart could endure, every pain he had felt and all those pains yet to come. All at once. Her teeth sinking into his heart. His heart leaping and wriggling in her jaws, the slick, velvety caress of her long pink tongue. He felt it when her teeth found the fault line in his heart, the place not stitched up quite right, where the scarring of a small lifetime’s worth of hurt hadn’t healed cleanly. Acceptance bit down harder, harder, harder, and Charlie Merriweather’s broken heart cracked clean in two.
Charlie crumpled to his knees. There was no blood, which was strange, and he couldn’t feel the wet oil slick of an open wound on his chest where he knew it should be. But the pain was bright as a beacon, the half of his heart still in his chest thrumming with pain and loss, almost hiccuping with the shock of it.
Acceptance pulled away from Charlie and held something wet in her awful jaws—it was wriggling weakly and glowing, very faintly.
“Better do it quick, sister,” said Agony, eyeing the hunk of something in Acceptance’s jaws with eyes yellow as lanterns. “You know how they fast they harden in the open air.”
Acceptance made a noise that sounded like agreement, then tossed the lump of glowing flesh in the air and snapped her jaws down on it. It fell on the ground in two pieces, one much larger than the other.
“A bargain is a bargain, Charlie Merriweather,” said Acceptance, nudging the smaller piece towards him with her pointed nose. “You take this piece and we shall take ours.”
Agony picked up the piece of Charlie’s heart delicately in his fangs and carried it off. Aguish followed after, heading towards the end of the room. Acceptance went after them, looking small and no less terrifying in comparison to their looming bulk.
But before she disappeared, Acceptance paused and turned around to face him, Agony and Anguish flanking her on either side. “Very seldom have we had the pleasure of a heart such as yours, sweet Charlie. Take care of what is left of it. It would be such a shame to waste it.”
Charlie didn’t know what to say to this, so he fainted instead.
30
WHEN HE WOKE UP, BISCUITS WAS LICKING HIS face with her rough little tongue. It hurt, actually, but it felt good, too, because it meant that he was alive and Biscuits loved him. Sitting up, Biscuits twining anxious figures of eight around his feet and mewling in concern, he pulled up his sweater to look at his chest where Acceptance had chewed out half of his heart, but there was no blood, no gaping wound. Just the pale, smooth expanse of his skin and a hollow ache in his chest. Looking up, he was surprised to find that the War Room was just a supply closet, not big at all. It was odd, really, that he hadn’t recognized that before.
Then he looked down. Clutched in his hand was his half of the bargain.
It didn’t look very much like a piece of heart. It was spongy, a bit like modeling clay. He ran his fingertips along it and felt the tiny ridges of old, healed scars. Tooth marks, just like Acceptance had said.
This is a piece of my heart, thought Charlie, feeling very strange and a little sad but also a little hopeful. I grew this myself. This was inside me.
And now I will give it to Theo.
He tucked the piece of his heart safe in his pocket, then scooped up Biscuits. Out they walked into the cold, snowy night. Pudge and Bertie were waiting for them outside the door. Charlie followed them out into the street and around a few corners to where Mellie was sleeping in a little nest she had made of blankets and newspapers. Charlie set Bertie down at her feet and kissed the top of her grizzled head. She mumbled in her sleep.
“I love you, too,” Charlie whispered.
When he softly opened his front door, it was to Grandpa Fitz, asleep in his chair by the embers of the fire in the main room. His hand was resting on his chest, keeping Grandma Lily safe against his whole, unbroken heart. Charlie kissed the top of Grandpa Fitz’s head as he walked past. Grandpa Fitz let out a loud, content snore.
Up the stairs and down the hall, Charlie peeked into Mum’s room. She was sleeping soundly on the left side of the large bed. The other side was waiting for Dad, who would never lie there again. But Mum was smiling in her sleep.
Charlie closed the door as quietly as he could and then crept into Theo’s room, avoiding the squeaky floorboard and sitting down on the foot of Theo’s bed.
Theo was muttering in his sleep. A bad dream, maybe, but not a nightmare.
Charlie fished the bit of heart out of his pocket and held it up to the moonlight creeping through the curtains. It was awfully small. Underneath the dirt it had picked up on the floor, and the lint it had picked up in Charlie’s pocket, it was gold.
Charlie pressed it against Theo’s chest and thought, as loudly and strongly as he could, This is for you, Theo. I grew it for me, but I’m giving it to you. Please take it. Please let it grow. I love you.
When he pulled his hand away, the piece of heart was gone, as if it had never been.
When Theo woke up, a moment later, Charlie held out his hand. Theo took it.
“Charlie . . . ?”
“You can go back to sleep now,” said Charlie. “Don’t worry—I’ll keep you safe.”
Theo looked at Charlie with sleepy eyes and smiled, just a little. It didn’t fit quite right, but it was stretching.
“I believe you,” he said. “Will you—will you tell me a story?”
“Yes,” Charlie said. “Once there were two brothers, and one got lost. But the other brother found him. Because they loved each other. The end.�
��
“That’s it?”
“That’s the only story that matters.”
Biscuits curled on top of Theo’s chest, keeping Charlie’s heart safe and warm and ready to grow, if only Theo would let it. Underneath her purring, Charlie fancied he could hear it beating.
31
“DON’T READ IT UNTIL I’M GONE,” THEO TOLD HIM as he pressed the letter into Charlie’s clammy hands.
Charlie stood on the platform between Mum and Grandpa Fitz and watched the train carrying Theo away to the Rosehill Home for Returning Soldiers until it disappeared from sight, and for a while after that, too. Mum kept the knuckles of one hand pressed against her lips, and kept Charlie’s hand clasped tight in the other. Grandpa Fitz let his hand rest heavy on Charlie’s shoulder. But even with the two of them anchoring him in place, there was a strange sensation. That he was almost weightless, that if they let go of him he would blow apart like a dandelion.
But they did let go, eventually.
And he didn’t blow away.
They could have taken a cab or a bus back home, but they agreed without seeming to discuss it that they would all prefer to walk. Charlie went slowly, a bit behind Mum and Grandpa Fitz, watching the slow drip of water melting off gutters and tree branches. Ragged bits of green were dragging themselves into daylight everywhere he looked. He hadn’t even really needed his coat.
A street from home, Biscuits catapulted up into the air over a rubbish bin she’d been hiding behind, startling a laugh out of Charlie as he caught her in his arms. Mum and Grandpa Fitz turned back to see them, and Mum smiled. It was only a little watery around the edges.
The letter in Charlie’s pocket rustled a bit as Biscuits climbed up to his shoulder with the focus of a mountaineer. He should read it. He wanted to read it. But then he thought about the echoing spaces inside the house, and he found he could not go inside to a place where Theo didn’t live. Not yet.
“Mum, I’m going to visit Aggie and Reggie,” he said, pushing Biscuits’s back feet the last bit up onto his shoulder.
“One day, you’re going to have to introduce us to these new mysterious friends of yours,” Mum threatened, but her smile was easy.
“One day,” Charlie promised.
“Biscuits, keep him out of trouble!” Grandpa Fitz said with a big, booming laugh. The locket with Grandma Lily’s portrait gleamed through a gap between the buttons of his shirt. Charlie waved to them as he turned around towards the hospital and started walking.
He missed Theo. It was a physical sensation as plain as being hungry. Sharp but bearable. His brother hadn’t seemed that different when he left. “You know I’m no good with goodbyes, and Mum’ll be a mess, so—here,” he had said, shoving the letter at Charlie before going back to double-checking all his bags. Charlie focused on the memory of that piece of his heart sinking into Theo’s chest.
It felt different. His heart. He could feel the edge where it had been torn, could feel the empty space around it that made it every heartbeat feel as if it had an echo, an afterimage like the kind you got from looking at the sun. There was the feeling, and just behind it, the memory of how it felt before, before Acceptance’s jaw hinged shut around his beating heart. A ribbon of sadness ran through him now, wrapped around his heart, such as it was, and through everything around him.
But ribbons, after all, could hold things together.
“Oh, hello, love. Are you here to see the lieutenant again?”
The lady with spectacles—Nurse Radcliffe, he remembered now—was minding the front desk. She had a very large nose, but the nose matched her rather large spectacles, which in turn made her eyes look as large as an insect’s. The spectacles evened out her features. She really had a very pleasant face.
Charlie realized he’d been staring at her for what was fast approaching a strange amount of time. “Er. Yes. Please. Thank you.”
She smiled, wide and bright. “You’re such a dear. You go right on in. And I’ll make sure Aggie knows you’re here,” she added with a wink.
“Thank you, Miss Radcliffe,” Charlie said, feeling rather red and sweaty.
“Oh, look at you, with your sweet little face,” Nurse Radcliffe said, waving her hand at him. “Get out of here.”
“Um. Okay.” Charlie scuttled into the hall, thoroughly unsure as to whether he should be pleased or mortified. There was a long wooden bench running along one wall, and he took a seat the very end of it, his feet just barely touching the ground. Had they touched the last time he was here?
“Charlie!” Aggie appeared after a few minutes in a swish of gray-and-white uniform. “What brings you here today, my fine young friend? You know what? Don’t answer quite yet. I’ve got loads to do and I’m avoiding Matron because she’ll make me do it, so come hide with me and once we’re in the clear we can have a nice sit-down.”
Charlie opened his mouth to respond, but Aggie was already off and running, striding down the busy hall with a clarity of purpose that dared anyone to question it. He jumped to his feet and scrambled after her, dodging around doctors and nurses and patients in their drab white hospital clothes.
She stopped by a door and waved her hand about frantically behind her. Charlie scooted inside and she yanked the door closed. There were more empty beds than Charlie remembered seeing before.
“Oh, hullo, Charlie!” Reggie was sitting up in bed, reading a newspaper and looking rather . . . whatever the opposite of worse for wear was. Better for wear? Repaired, maybe. “What are you doing here on such a fine and lovely day?”
“I just . . . wanted to see you, I guess. To see how you were doing.”
“Well, I’m very glad to hear it. Let me know if you need me to shove off so you can chat with Aggie. I haven’t wandered the halls half-dressed in several months now. I rather miss the thrill of it.” Aggie grabbed a page of unattended newspaper and swatted at him with it.
“Do you need me to get rid of him, Charlie?” Aggie said, pretending to be annoyed. “Because I’d be happy to. Possibly permanently.”
“No, it’s fine.” He pressed his hand to his coat’s breast pocket and felt the crackle of the letter again. “I just wanted to talk to someone for a bit. I’m building up to doing something, but I don’t know if I’m brave enough yet.”
“You’re one of the bravest people I know, Charlie,” Reggie said without hesitation.
“Why don’t you think you’re brave enough?” Aggie asked, seating herself at the foot of Reggie’s bed.
Charlie just shrugged. How could anyone ever explain the state of their own heart?
“Well, it seems to me that the sort of person one is, is quite dependent on the sort of things one does,” said Aggie, her voice firm and thoughtful. “So if you do something that’s brave and good, even if you don’t think you’re a brave and good person, doesn’t that make you brave and good?”
“Maybe.” Charlie remained unconvinced. Before he knew it, he’d blurted out, “Will you tell me a story, Aggie?”
“What, like a bedtime story?”
“Any kind you like.” Charlie’s cheeks burned, but he didn’t regret asking.
“Oh Lord, this is like when someone asks you what your favorite food is and you can’t think of anything you’ve eaten even once,” Aggie said, brushing her hair back with a laugh.
“Well, how about this,” said Reggie. “Once there was a handsome prince with an even handsomer mustache.”
Aggie rolled her eyes. “Typical.”
“There’s always a handsome prince!” Reggie protested.
“Tradition is just a long line of dead people looking down their noses at you,” Aggie said in a tone that brooked no arguments.
“Er . . . Once there was an average-looking man of no particular social standing, who still possessed a very handsome mustache nonetheless. Is that better?”
“Well, it’s not worse, at any rate.”
“And he was cursed to . . . hmm, what’s a good curse?”
“Not in f
ront of the children, please,” Aggie said crossly.
“That’s not what I meant!” Reggie spluttered, but Aggie winked at Charlie over her shoulder.
“What about muteness?” she suggested.
“There was an average-looking man of no particular social standing who was cursed to never be able to say what he really meant. So if he was ill, he would say he was well, and if he was sad, he would say he was cheerful or hungry or sleepy or something.”
“How is that any different from lying?” Aggie crossed her arms, and something about the angle of her eyebrow implied she was deeply unimpressed.
“Because he wasn’t doing it on purpose!”
“Hmm.”
“And one day the cursed average-looking man of no particular social standing met a princess.”
“A princess, naturally. There are no poor girls in this entire country.” Aggie’s eyebrow was pure disdain.
“All girls are secretly princesses, that is the rule, there is a precedent,” Reggie said, making a sweeping gesture with both hands.
“Tosh.”
“There is!”
Charlie had the strange sensation that he was only hearing half of their conversation. Their faces never seemed to quite match the words they were saying. He kept almost-remembering what it reminded him of, and then it would slip through his grasp again. He realized with a start the conversation had quite gotten away from him.
“Well, obviously they rule the kingdom together in harmony.”
“Oh, ‘obviously,’ is it?” said Aggie tartly.
“Happily ever after! It’s the rule.” Reggie raked a hand through his dark hair in apparent frustration, not seeming to realize he was making it stand up on end like a cockatoo. Aggie looked at him with a face that was clearly supposed to be despairing, but wasn’t. It reminded him of Mum, actually, that look, but he couldn’t place who she would be looking at. Grandpa Fitz? Mr. Cleaver?
“Thank you, both of you.” Charlie rose to his feet. “Hopefully I’ll see you soon,” he said, feeling now like he was intruding on something private and a bit fragile. He got up and gave Reggie a quick, impulsive hug. With his ear pressed against Reggie’s chest, he thought for just a moment he heard a sort of . . . noise. He drew back in surprise.
Hollow Chest Page 23